Before the Flood
by aLittleTooLiora
Summary: Leonardo remembers very little from his childhood until he and his brothers are scouted from a sideshow and cast in a New York circus arts production. Now the memories are coming back - but so are the old enemies. 2003, AU, dark content. Rating may increase.


AN: Hi, all! Recently went to Vegas and had a big attack of Cirque du Soleil-related inspiration that just didn't want to go away. This is an alternate-universe chapter story that gets quite dark later on. Expect Splinter, the Shredder and company, April, and Casey to appear in future updates, as well as some **grim content—language, manipulation, torture, **_**possibly**_** some uncomfortable/enforced turtlecest. No original characters** will play important roles in this work. I only named them because I couldn't bring myself to keep using epithets! Apologies for the liberties taken with circus acts and procedures. Concrit very much appreciated.

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**Before the Flood  
****by aLittleTooLiora  
****Chapter One**

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The _Antediluvian _dress rehearsal was at the apex of its final act when Woodrow Dwyer escorted Leonardo and his brothers through the new theatre doors at the Helmsley.

Leo's duffel bag slipped off his shoulder. No one heard it hit the ground. The music was so loud that Leo could feel it thrumming in the pit of his stomach, rich and visceral—nothing like it had sounded an hour earlier, when Michelangelo had slipped the CD out of its envelope and played their track through the rental car's muffled speakers. "It's kind of fast-paced, atmospheric," Leo had said. "We can work with this." Then Raph had woken up and bitched about the volume, and Mikey crumbled a handful of Cheetos down his collar, and Donatello lifted his sunglasses and began a lengthy oral treatise entitled, "You Will All Shut Up Now or I Will Drive Into that_ Pupusa_ Stand."

Only in retrospect was it clear how unprepared they'd been for this. For any single component of this, really. New York City, the colossal half-moon stage, an 87-member performance troupe and a 1700-seat auditorium—a space _built_ for this groundbreaking show. A show that they had only been a part of for a few days.

It was still March when the starry-eyed talent scout had chanced upon their Coloradan sideshow act. They'd been on the Chinese poles that day, just messing around, trying to rework an old routine to some new mix Mikey was going apeshit over. The zanies had noticed the scout before they did. Her expensive phone and tailored ecru dress slacks were red flags against their backwater milieu. By the time the brothers had finished their show, the audience was speckled with overprotective clowns and hoopers, fortune tellers and strongmen and even a few coochie girls (_exotic dancers_, Leo corrected Raph sharply) who'd abandoned their posts to stand sentry. It would've been comical if it weren't so disquieting. Their company didn't take kindly to talent-poaching gillies, and even accompanied by unicycles and squeaky shoes, circus-style beatdowns were decidedly unfunny.

"Wait, please," the woman had said, after the crowd had cleared, and Bernaldino the Big intercepted her on her way to the stage. She held up a business card that matched her pale, glistening manicure. "My name is Gabrielle Puzorelli. I have a once-in-a-lifetime business proposition for these four athletes."

And that was the clincher. Not 'freaks of nature.' Not 'performers,' even. Puzorelli had used a word intended for high-performance humans, not backwoods biological monstrosities. Bernaldino glanced at Leonardo, scowling, then stepped aside at Leo's small, wary nod.

She was from Cirque Âme, the nation's premier circus arts entertainment company. Michelangelo whimpered when he saw her card. Their latest production, _Antediluvian_, was slated for a late-April opening, but an accident had left a principal aerialist hospitalized. Now the show was overhyped and running short, and the first act lacked a dramatic crest. "The Chinese poles will be sufficient, I'm sure," Puzorelli had added, with a note of despair. "I don't suppose you have any experience with trapeze?"

They did. Between the four of them, they could do almost anything: the poles, yes, both Chinese and Danish, but trapeze was their forte. Then there was trick-roping. Trampolining. Springboards, stilts and tightropes, aerial silks—plus their individual skill sets, honed whenever one brother was too busy or unwell to participate in group practice. Raphael's fire-spinning was proficient, his knife-throwing surgical. Leo and Don were working on a respectable acrobalance routine. Michelangelo in particular was a flood of idiosyncratic talent; contortion and juggling, physical comedy, plate-spinning, and an asinine sketch with a bowler hat that always made Don laugh himself to tears. Gabrielle Puzorelli didn't believe their alleged qualifications until they demonstrated for her. Within thirty minutes of their impromptu stunt show, all of it recorded to her phone, she was begging to sign them with Cirque Âme.

"We can't," Leo had confessed then, speaking for all of them. "This was fun, and we appreciate your interest, but our place is here."

Puzorelli was frantic. "I've spoken to my boss. We can offer you each two hundred thousand dollars a year, plus travel expenses."

"Jesus," Raph muttered.

"That's a lot of dollar-smoothies," Mikey observed, sounding awed. "I can't do the math, but that's, like—_a_ _lot_."

"Mikey," said Don, sighing. "What is anything divided by one?"

"Ever heard of a little thing called sales tax, bro?"

"Yes, but I didn't realize _you_ knew what that was!"

"It's not about pay," Leonardo cut in. And it was true. They'd never had much need for money, as their troupe provided generously for their food and lodging. No, their true desires were intangible. They craved a home, acceptance. Answers about their pasts, like the origins of their names, or the reason the smells of rain and incense still made them feel homesick. Sometimes, deep in his heart, Leonardo even dared to wonder about a smooth pink hand on his forehead—a soft, sturdy shadow that smelled of musk, shaping the safest of his dreams.

A shadow he had once called "Father."

Cirque Âme could provide them with many things, but a family was not one of them.

In the end, though, the decision was made for them by the closest person they had to a parent: Sharkie Howerton, the ringleader, who insisted they go when he found out the show was being staged in New York City.

"You kids are taking this opportunity," Sharkie said. "Don't try to tell me different." He was a strange man, gruff and unobtrusive, and the black gloved hands he clapped to Leo and Raph's shoulders were as intimate as embraces. "Something about that place calls to you, I bet. As well it should. I knew you four were big city folk the day I found you picking popcorn outta the dirt outside Lowville. No one's ever that desperate and determined unless they were born with some boom town in 'em. You go ahead and find what you want, all right? Don't let me or any of these other freaks hold you back."

Leo had never told anyone about his quiet nostalgia for NYC, not even his brothers, because he'd assumed it was a baseless instinct. Sharkie had never mentioned that he'd found them in New York. What else did he know about their infancy, a cold blur of jeering and hunger and his three trembling siblings? Leo told Puzorelli they would think about it, then retreated to the trailer to figure out how to confront Sharkie about the circumstances of their adoption. They'd slept that night on the floor, huddled together, like children. The next morning, their troupe was gone. The field empty. The only family they'd ever known had moved on without them, leaving nothing behind but two deflated balloons and the Cirque Âme business card, weighed to the ground with six shiny quarters.

So Leonardo called Gabrielle Puzorelli on a pay phone. She met with them an hour before she boarded her flight back to JFK, rented them a car, pressed a bundle of bills and CDs and a disposable cell phone onto them. They spent the afternoon shopping and packing up the trailer. Pulled on clothes that concealed as much skin as possible. Then Donatello guided the car a dozen times around a supermarket parking lot, learning how to drive, and they set off for New York City.

There was nothing else for them to do.

They were slow and distressed, and the trip took three long days. By the third morning, Donnie was operating the white Saturn like a pro, and Michelangelo had finally stopped crying. Gabrielle kept in constant contact, working out the details of their employment, their act, and their accommodations. "Stay with me at my place," she said eventually. "It's the least I can do. You're saving the show."

"Don't count on that," Leonardo warned. "Our biggest audience to date was a small fraternity from Greeley, and they were all pretty drunk."

"Leonardo, I watch over a thousand auditions a year," said Gabby. "I've seen maybe eight artists equal to you and your brothers in talent, and none of them were nearly as young as you are. Dwyer is going to love you."

"Even with—?" Leo awkwardly touched his shell, knowing she couldn't see the gesture.

They'd explained away their appearances with ambiguous comments about genetic defects and stage makeup, and she'd been desperate enough not to press further. "Already spoke to him about it. The reptile gimmick will be perfect with the theme, 'before the flood.' I can't promise you any work in future productions, but you've heard of, um—my apologies—Antediluvian sea monsters. Yes?"

They'd all winced at the m-word, but now, watching the dress rehearsal whirl to an end, Leonardo could not have been more grateful. The production was a thrill of theatrics, opulently costumed. Ice goddesses and Atlantian acrobats poured across the stage under torrent of blue fluorescence. A beautiful dancer swam through the spotlights in green gauze, sleeves trailing like fins from limbs painted with golden scales. Towering metal giants oscillated along the backdrop. Even in all of her enthusiasm, Gabby had undersold the magnitude of the show. This was a multi-million dollar vision. Leonardo stood very still in the dark theatre, trying to support himself on legs that he could no longer feel.

"Holy shit_,_" Michelangelo breathed softly. Which, Leonardo decided, summed it up nicely.

What they hell had they gotten themselves into?

"Can't," Raph said suddenly, from behind them. He sounded like he was hyperventilating. "Can't do it, Leo. I—this is—"

"He's right," said Donnie, gripping Leonardo's arm. "Let's leave. Please."

"Gabby—" Leo began.

"—is a woman we barely know. We owe her nothing. We'll do odd jobs around the city, pay her back for travel costs. Then—"

Don hesitated, not sure how to continue. Leo seized upon that uncertainty, working hard to keep his voice smooth and rational: "Then what? Hitchhike back to Colorado? We have nowhere to go, Donnie. Sharkie's gone. He wanted us to come to New York. We drove all the way here, where we have lodging, employment, and each other." He grabbed Don with one hand and Raph with the other, giving them bracing shakes until they met his eyes. "We have each other," he repeated firmly. "That's all that matters."

His words gained an unexpected weight as the last notes died down, making his voice resonate through the theatre in the abrupt silence. It was like a bad joke. Leonardo's stomach plummeted to his feet as he slowly, _slowly_ turned around.

The house lights were on. The cast was frozen onstage in their final poses. They were staring at him.

All eighty of them.

Leonardo gulped and squared his shoulders. The edges of his vision began to go white.

"Good afternoon, everyone. Gather. Gather around here." Woodrow Dwyer, the director, clapped his hands briskly, breaking the auditorium's paralysis. The troupe relaxed into laughter and murmurs, suddenly nothing more threatening than an assembly of very sweaty humans.

Leonardo let out a low breath and made a sound caught somewhere between a snort and a sob. Unexpectedly, it made Raph snicker. It eased some of the mounting panic. When Dwyer beckoned them toward the stage, Michelangelo pasted on a smile, dragging Donatello forward with passable self-confidence. Leo stooped to retrieve his gym bag, willing his head to stop ringing. Raphael elbowed him as he passed, his eyes hard and unreadable.

"You're the boss, Leo," he said. "But this better not be somethin' we regret."

Leo followed his brothers down the aisle. Mikey vaulted the guardrail and hoisted himself onstage through the orchestra pit, but Leo took the stairs behind Don and Raph, hoping he looked tidy and nonchalant. The cast was watching again, this time with undisguised interest. They'd circled around their director. Leo had to focus to hear Dwyer's introduction.

"—handpicked from a traveling circus in Colorado earlier this week. They'll be filling in for Emery on the flying trapeze. Feel like introducing yourselves, boys?"

For all of their supposed poise, all three deferred to Leo. Silently cursing them, Leo cleared his throat. "Yeah. Hi. I'm Leonardo. These are my brothers, Raphael, Michelangelo—"

"Hi!"

"—and Donatello."

"Great costumes," said one of the acrobats.

Leo tried to smile. "Thank you."

"Who is your agent?" asked another, her voice more hostile. "Where have you trained?"

Dwyer intercepted the questions: "Due to the specialized nature of their act and our needs, Gabby and I chose to waive the usual entry processes."

"That's bullshit," muttered a dancer, dressed in an iridescent mosasaur costume. "I had to send in thirteen tapes before I even got an audition! It took me eight years to get into one of your shows!"

"And you're still here now," Dwyer countered, over a low rumble of agreement, "because we've invited these high-caliber athletes to protect our show from postponement or cancellation. A little class, here. We always have and always will maintain an elite corps of performers, and you are _all_ a part of that unit."

It seemed to mollify the dissenters, but the damage was already done. Leo glanced sideways at the theatre exits. He felt stung, and way too fragile for this stress. This was just another privileged group of humans, ranks closed to interlopers. What could these young, attractive people possibly know about being alone? Leo decided they would leave at the first opportunity that presented itself, hoping his siblings could forgive him for letting this ridiculous proposal go so far. They hadn't signed anything; they could still get out. Beside him, Raph's fists tightened, relaxed, tightened again.

"I'm sorry," the mosasaur said aloud. "I'm on edge. We're all worried about Emery."

"We really didn't mean to, uh, capitalize on his misfortune, dude," said Mikey.

"Of course you didn't."

A young Asian girl in silver sequined Lycra raised her hand as if in school. "How old are you?" she asked, directing the question toward Mikey, who squinted upwards in uncertainty.

"Um. Sixteen?"

"All of you?" she gasped. "Are you quadruplets?"

"Sixteen, seventeen," Leo cut in, saving Mikey. "We're not quite sure. We're orphans. Our earliest absolute memories are of the circus."

A troubled silence settled over the group and lingered. Leonardo felt his face grow warm. He hadn't meant to derail the conversation with details of their uncomfortable history, especially when they were probably beginning to realize that Dwyer's diplomatic use of the phrase 'traveling circus' really meant 'sideshow.' They were aberrations. Even during an extravagantly costumed rehearsal, it must be clear that some of their deformities were genuine.

"But don't pity us," Leo added quickly, speaking to the sudden insecurity in his brothers' eyes as much as his own stubborn dignity. "Please. We're extraordinarily lucky. So many children are separated from each other when their parents can no longer take care of them, but somehow, we stayed together. I'm thankful for that every day. I wouldn't have survived without Raph lending me his sweatshirts or Don building us a hot plate or Mikey making us laugh all the time, giving us reasons to keep going. Sharkie—our ringleader—he introduced us to the trapeze because he knew we already had the hard part down. The trust part. Everything else just—follows."

This time, the responding stillness was different. Somehow respectful, which Leonardo sensed even without any basis for comparison in his experiences with non-circus humans. Mikey nudged Don, shooting him a grin that was gently returned. Raph caught Leo's gaze and gave him the barest of nods. Leo smiled back.

"Can we see your act?" the small acrobat said suddenly.

The corners of Leo's mouth pulled into a grimace. "Oh. Well—"

"Oh please! Please, please!" She leapt nimbly to her feet and seized Raph's elbow, hopping up and down. Raph looked horrified. "Mr. Dwyer, make them show us!"

"We will need to see it several times in order to being making effective adjustments to the musical accompaniment," Dwyer said. He reached for an overburdened clipboard at the edge of the stage and began paging through the stack of notes. "Let's see. Gabby sent me a video clip that ran about six and a half minutes. It was very impressive, but I'll bet we can do even better. Emery's act averaged five-forty, but perhaps if we add a coda—I had Lucas readjust the rig this morning—"

"Showtime!" the girl declared. She vaulted offstage and raced to the first row. To Leo's alarm, the other performers began trickling toward the audience as well, chatting excitedly, and Dwyer wandered away to double-check the safety net.

"Leo?" said Mikey, sounding baffled. "Are we really gonna do this? Right now?"

Leo shrugged, helpless. "It appears so."

"Why, you scared?" Raph challenged—or tried to. Mikey was already whooping and dashing toward the fifty-foot ladder before he could finish getting the words out, shedding his windbreaker and shirt along the way. Completely unabashed about his appearance. Leo started after him, a good scolding already rising reflexively to his lips, but Donatello caught the edge of his shell.

"Wait! Leonardo."

He turned and frowned in concern. Don did not look well. He was Michelangelo's opposite when it came to performing—the nerves to his youngest brother's unthinking ease, the timidity to Mikey's unquenchable thirst for attention. "I don't know about this," Don said, gripping his gym bag like a life preserver. "It's all happening so fast, you know? This isn't rural Colorado anymore. We're in New York. These are _professionals_ here."

Don had pitched his voice low, but Raph, still lingering nearby, overheard anyway. He laid one bracing hand on Don's neck. "Hey, we're professionals now too, ain't we?"

"Not yet," said Don.

"Well, we're damned close. And Leo's soppy speech was right: we just gotta trust each other. It's what got us this far. We ain't gonna fail now."

"I don't know about that," said Leo.

Raph rounded on him, irritated. "What? _Now_ you're havin' doubts? Why the hell would—"

"I mean, I trust you and Mikey," Leo interrupted, smirking at Don, "but Raph did have an awful lot of those McBurgers or whatever on the drive here."

It did the trick. Don laughed, and Raph sputtered indignantly, trying and failing to stay angry. Leonardo lowered his duffel, toed off his shoes, and stripped down to his black spandex uniform. He stared briefly at his reptilian hands. Ran his three green fingers up along his wrists, across his pale, smooth-plated abdomen. Then he squared his shoulders and followed Mikey toward the rig. In a few weeks, he could be performing before almost two thousand spectators. The hundred in today's audience should be nothing compared to that.

By the time he'd chalked up and climbed to the top platform, Mikey had already claimed one of the four fly bars, hooting excitedly and warming up with effortless half-turns. "This rocks, Leo!" he yelled. "You think we could get Sharkie to spring for a setup like this?"

"Pretty sure this 'setup' costs more than his entire workforce, including the elephants," said Leo. He gripped his own bar experimentally. The aluminum was cool in his palms, solid. Drawing in a deep breath, he swung himself out over the net—and couldn't help laughing in pure, startled joy. God, how he loved this. Loved the rush of wind on his face, the force, the sudden consciousness of each muscle in his body and how best to use them. He'd never worked with equipment this new or well-built. It made a difference. He felt multiplied in his freedom, a thrill so full and uncomplicated that he wished he never had to touch the ground again.

He pushed just a little higher, acclimating, and could soon sense that Raph and Don had joined them. Flashes of green in his peripheral vision. The thin wind of Don's methodological swings, the tumult of Raph's aggressive impetus. When they'd all had sufficient time to familiarize themselves with the space and the rig, Mikey disembarked to the far pedestal with a sassy trick remount that made Leo roll his eyes affectionately. A second later, he executed his own return, and made room so Raphael could land a straight jump beside him.

"It don't get any better than this," said Raph, grinning.

"Sure doesn't," Leo agreed.

Raph stared across the theatre. His gaze grew wistful. He rubbed the top of his head, leaving a white smear of chalk. "Leo. You think—?"

Leo waited. "What?"

"I don't know. Forget it. It's stupid."

"Nothing you say is stupid, Raph."

Raph glanced up at him. They were scarce, these open moments between them—Raph was too often belligerent, or else Leo was argumentative, and they'd always spent more time yelling at each other's backs than they did talking. Today, though, the whole world seemed to be unfurling. Like some unknowable flower budding somewhere in the dark. The possibility of it made them accommodating, and when Raph swallowed hard past an obstruction in his throat, Leo was not tempted to make fun of him for it.

"Just say we get hired today," said Raph. "Say we get to do this show, and it gets big, and people start scramblin' to see it. You think maybe—_he_ might see it somehow? And maybe he might recognize us, want to meet with us, maybe?"

Leo drew in a breath to speak, and found himself holding it instead.

"Ready for the music?" Dwyer shouted from the ground.

Raph sighed and twisted away, gripping the bar with his weight balanced on his heels. Leo cleared his throat. "Ready," he called down.

Dwyer twirled a finger toward the sound tech. "Hit it!"

"I think," said Leo, in the few precious seconds of silence that followed, "that anything is possible."

The music started. It was gorgeously orchestrated, dynamic, damn near earsplitting. Raphael lifted his head to fix Leonardo with a smile so strong it burned. Then he straightened his elbows, mouthed a quick countdown—_san, ni, ichi_—and let the gravity drag him into the darkness.

Every time, it made Leo's heart leap. Every time, Leo wanted to fling himself after his brother, screaming for him. Then Raph rose miraculously from the miasma, as he always did, all sturdy muscle and driving energy, pushing into a gienger for his knee-hang. On the opposite end of the rig, Mikey arced into his own lashing departure. Perfect counterpoint to Raph's rhythm. It took them three swings to build the correct momentum, and Leo barely heard Raph's low verbal cue over the soundtrack. Then Mike was soaring into a simple twisting layout. Deliberately starting their audience off slow, maybe. Leo readied himself at the sound of Raph's easy catch, then swung off one-handed to catch Mikey's high-five on his return to the platform Leo was just vacating.

_Zen_. Natural. Leo pumped himself higher, savoring the brief, rare synchronicity he shared with Raphael. With all of his brothers, really. He performed his planche without hesitation, trusting his hands to close around the fly bar that Don always swung for him with unfailing, physics-backed accuracy.

From there on, it was a cakewalk. He kept his height and rhythm up, and Don and Mikey did their thing, filling the air with twists and cutaways. Donatello kept it weightless and precise, his halves and singles elegant in their exactitude, but of course Mikey showboated and threw in doubles and splits and one triple layout that Leo was absolutely going to _kill_ him for later. The soundtrack wasn't ideal—Dwyer was right; it'd need tweaking for the timing issues, and it probably wouldn't hurt to throw in a few silent fermatas for the live orchestra during the longer tricks. But the Cirque Âme troupe was brazenly receptive, filling the air with whistles and applause. By the time Leo dismounted, they had all crowded back onto the stage, cheering.

Leo beamed at Don, who smiled back from his place on the other ladder—a smile that quickly turned into a stream of startled obscenities as Mike plummeted to the net in a double inverse suicide. Raph was already stepping down, flustered, grumbling and trying to evade his congratulatory audience. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Mike leapt onto his back. Leo had to stop climbing to laugh. His stomach felt warm. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so good.

When he finally got to the ground, Dwyer was extending a hand toward him with cordial solemnity.

"I believe you gentlemen have yourselves a job," he said.

Leo took his hand and shook it firmly, chalk and sweat and reptile skin and all. "Thanks," he said. It was the first time he had ever shaken hands with a human. Behind Dwyer, his brothers shoved, hugged, laughed. They were happy, Leonardo noted with pride. And they were together.

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**End of Chapter One**

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Thank you for reading! If you have time, feedback would be greatly appreciated.


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